WELL, IT’S HAPPENED. My older brother is officially old. Today is T’s 30th birthday. (Yet mysteriously he doesn’t seem a day over twelve.) When I asked him what he was planning on doing today, he responded with: “Well let me tell you what I’m NOT going to do today.” He then proceeded to list only two activities, both of which had to do with launching into space. So take heed, American public, anything is possible.

For my part in the celebration, I’m baking this cake (fingers crossed I can pull it off). And if you’re in the mood to get nostalgic, too, here are a few of T’s greatest hits from The Sister Project archives:

Brother T’s (snore-fest) birthday from last year, and the year before.

Unsuccessful attempts at finding T a date.

The all-time favorite phone call foibles.

Adventures in pony-riding!

Enjoy. Happy Birthday, dear brother!

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SISTERLESS AS I AM, all my original lessons on sisterhood came from my sweet, sweet Mama. Here she is in 1981 with baby Brother T. Of course, I still catch her gazing at him with that exact same adoration now 30 years later. Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas (and mama’s boys)!

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LAST WEEK I THREW myself over a huge hurdle. (And I’m still not even sure how I did it.) I completed my MFA thesis reading. My parents came to North Carolina from various corners of the world and my sweet boyfriend traveled all the way from Tokyo to see me read. But even among all the excitement, I was sad to see that one big-baby-man-face was missing from the crowd. That’s right: T was on vacation in Costa Rica. However, my brother did send this congratulatory email in his absence.

Anna,

Good luck with your reading tomorrow. I am proud. I look forward to reading your exceptional work in the future. Please understand that it is not necessary to credit me with all of your inspirations at the end of your reading.
I love you.

Smug, right? But also very sweet.

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AS IT TURNS OUT, my brother T has been in the throes of paramount brotherly obligations lately. And no, I do not mean he has been on the phone coaching me through my teaching dilemmas with sage big brother advice. He happens to be the best man in his BFF’s upcoming wedding. And in true T fashion, he is taking this duty very seriously. And by very seriously, I mean he has been planning a blow-out bachelor party in Las Vegas. When we talked about it on the phone, I was all “Whaaat?! Don’t you think that’s a little extravagant?” And he was all, “No.”

Brotherhood means business, I guess.

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MY BROTHER T IS NOTORIOUSLY hard to shop for. This is not to say that he isn’t grateful. (He’s actually a total sweetie about receiving gifts.) It’s just that he’s that guy at every holiday function who loves being the Santa–you know, breaking the bank to make everyone’s gift wishes come true. (Think Michael Scott as Secret Santa in season two of The Office.) So naturally, it’s tricky to buy for the boy whose personal Christmas shopping motto is “go hard or go home.” Is this person in your family, too? If so, take heed (clockwise from top left):

1. “Herban Lifestyle” men’s shaving soap made from certified organic essential oils.

2. Travel size shaving brush made in England of pure badger bristles, which I think is especially perfect since T and I used to live on Badger Road!

3. A very cool looking cotton skinny tie for his days on the job.

4. A case of his absolute favorite organic Shady Maple Stroopwafel Cookies to last him all year long until next Christmas.

5. A Star Wars tee to nurture the raging geek inside of him.

6. A blank idea book for writing down notes on his future workplace comedy screenplay / risque crime novel / poem collection on hallucinogen drug use. (Stay tuned.)

7. Festive gingerbread ale beer making kit. (Sorry, Mom.) I figure he’ll feel less motivated to play beer pong if the beer is homemade and artisanal, right?

P.S. I was kind of worried about using all my good gift ideas for T on my blog where he could see them, but then I realized it probably wouldn’t be a problem since he never reads my blog. That rascal!

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zzzzzzzzz...on the couch before we left and then on the shores of the river.

HOW LUCKY AM I to be able spend some quality time with my brother T on his birthday? It’s been way too long since we hung out. (Six months!) To celebrate his 29th year, we brought a picnic lunch to the Green River. In true T style, however, all he wanted to do was nap. What the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets, right?

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Click here to view the embedded video.

WE’RE BIG FANS of Christmas carols in my family. “Oh Holy Night,” “Little Drummer Boy,” “The 12 Days of Christmas,” you name it, we’ve been singing it this week. And so last night between verses of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” my mom asked me if I remembered my very first favorite Christmas song. I was stumped at first. And then I remembered “Children Go Where I Send Thee,” and all the many Christmases T and I spent clapping and dancing along (with arguably as much spirit as that little tyke on the right) to the rhythm of that song came back to me. What about you? What was your childhood favorite carol? Current favorite?

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That's a beer bump I'm sporting, not a baby bump!

HOORAY! HALLOWEEN IS JUST around the corner, and we’re celebrating by sharing our favorite sisterly costumes. I must confess that my brother and I never dressed in a joint costume, and I’m pretty sure he hated trick-or-treating with me. I couldn’t keep up with his competitive candy-gathering, and my mermaid/angel/pumpkin costumes really cramped his Black Spiderman/ninja/vampire style. So wearing matching costumes was definitely out of the question. In college, my roommate Elizabeth and I dressed as a hillbilly couple on vacation (pictured above); it was my favorite couple costume of all time! Show us your sisterly (or sister-friend, in my case) outfits of Halloweens past and we’ll put the photos together in a slideshow. Send pictures to thesisterproject [at] gmail [dot] com.

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AS I MENTIONED EARLIER this week, I recently spent some time hanging out with my dad while he was visiting North Carolina. We had a great visit that was punctuated by headlocks, non sequiturs, and spontaneous drowsiness. And it really got me thinking how many of you TSP fans ask, “where does your Brother T get his unstoppable goofy streak?” Well let me tell you, dear readers, look no farther than the man in the reflective rainbow sunglasses for that answer.

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SINCE MY DEAR BROTHER has been working like a horse, staying overtime at his job and doing construction on his house, I haven’t been able to talk to him in weeks! Until a few days ago, when we finally had a moment to catch up with each other…

And so as I’m talking to him about school and the weather and his stock portfolio, he is getting ready for work and seems a bit distracted. He tells me to hold on and I can hear the muffled sound of people talking. I’m holding on for a good four minutes before he comes back on the line. When I ask about who is there, and does he need to go?, he simply replies that he put down the phone to watch the footage of Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift’s VMA speech on YouTube. ON YOUTUBE! He couldn’t even wait to push play until after we got off our long-lost-sibling phone call! I swear, if that boy didn’t make me laugh, I would clobber him.

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